Aurora watch: Northern light possible overnight?

Skies lit up with waves of northern lights across clear areas of North America including the Dakotas in the pre-dawn hours Thursday morning. Skywatchers captured some amazing images as the multicolored show sparked waves and curtains of light.

Here’s another great image from near Billings, Mont.

The website spaceweather.com is a good place to track aurora trends. They said this about the show early Thursday. NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center is another good resource.

As predicted, a Cannibal CME hit Earth's magnetic field on March 31st (0210 UT). The impact caused a G1-class geomagnetic storm--weaker than the G3 storm that was expected, but still enough to spark auroras across multiple northern-tier US states.

Another solar flare Thursday

Another solar flare erupted from the sun Thursday afternoon. This could hit the Earth’s atmosphere overnight into Friday morning. There are no guarantees it will produce auroras, but there is a chance for another show.

ANOTHER STRONG SOLAR FLARE: Active sunspot AR2975 just did it again, producing another very strong solar flare: movie. The almost-X flare (magnitude M9.6) peaked at 1835 UT on March 31st. Type II solar radio emissions recorded by the US Air Force suggest that a CME will soon emerge emerge from the blast site traveling faster than 1600 km/s. Will it hit Earth? Stay tuned for answers.

People across the Upper Midwest who observe clear skies overnight into early Friday morning could see another aurora possible show. Satellite trends and forecast models show most of Minnesota should see clearing skies overnight.

Here is NOAA’s GFS model total cloud cover output for 1 a.m. Friday.

Happy aurora hunting. Good luck!